


higher than soul can hope

by brahnuh



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - TiMER Fusion, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, i'll update the tags as i update the thing, this is new to me pls be kind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 04:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7085791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahnuh/pseuds/brahnuh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He sighed, staring in the windows that showed pictures of forcibly happy people that were meant to prove that TiMERs really did work to help people find the person they’re destined to be with.<br/>He didn’t know what finally pushed him over the edge. It could have been the increasingly sad looks he’d been given by the ladies at the old folks' home, or the men shaking their heads when they saw his still-empty wrists, or maybe the accusatory stares some of his coworkers directed at his arms. It was disconcerting, really, how quickly this trend had taken over and given him yet something else to be looked down upon for.<br/>It was that thought that finally gave him the motivation to go through the doors into the shop, earning a gust of warm air as he stumbled in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the movie TiMER a few years ago and was inspired to write a Steve/Bucky soulmate AU... this began, but was never touched after 2014, so now I'm coming back to it and I think it'll be worth it!
> 
> This is my first big fic which is kind of terrifying but! I'm determined to get it done and out there, so! Huzzah!
> 
> Posting it here has given me incentive to want to continue, for sure. I have maybe two more chapters' worth written already, but there's so much more to go - this is a long one, folks, but with me, when won't they be?
> 
> ANYWAY, this is my first real fic baby that I'm exposing to the world, so be gentle with it, and I hope you enjoy Chapter 1! It's the intro chapter, really, so it'll be shorter than the rest, I think. Chapter 2 should be up soon! I'm hoping to update relatively regularly once finals are over.
> 
> Huge thanks to [Tori](http://archiveofourown.org/users/brraveheart/profile), for being my beta and my soilmate. bless u, pal. <3
> 
> p.s. talk to me on [tumblr](http://generalrogers.tumblr.com)!

Steve Rogers had spent a lot of time thinking about fate. On the one hand, he thought you should earn what happened to you, work for it — but he’d been dealing with a horrible immune system and a never-ending list of health problems since the moment he took his first, rattling breath. He knew he wasn’t exactly a bad person, in the womb, so he was hard pressed to find a reason for him to have earned the necessity of fighting so hard to stay alive. Modern medicine should’ve fixed that by now, right? He spent a lot of time in a staring contest with Death, growing up, but never gave in, never took the breath that would be his last. It was enough to have him asking, sometimes, about his own destiny, thinking maybe he had something he needed to do before he’d blink.

    Society seemed to have fully latched onto the idea of fate, though. Faster than he’d ever seen anything other than maybe iPhones catch on, people were getting and advocating for TiMERs, devices that counted down the moments until the day you’d find your soulmate. Steve watched as each day more of the nurses at the old folks’ home he worked for came into work showing off their new TiMERs, varying lengths of time proudly displayed on their wrists. Soon enough, there were only maybe 5 employees left that didn’t have one, Steve being one of them. He considered himself an optimist, most of the time, and he wanted to be happy for all of his coworkers — but there was still that nagging at the back of his mind, the debate whether or not fate existed. It felt like the evidence was right in front of him, but he also worried for the emotional health of the people that surrounded him. He didn’t want it to be some kind of scam, for their sake.

    Though, if it gave you someone to love and someone who would love you, maybe it wasn’t so bad, he thought. It’d be nice to have someone like that, and his coworkers were mostly all young and attractive, so he had little doubt they’d find people.

    Steve, however, could barely reach over 100 pounds when he was soaking wet and weighed down by numerous layers of clothing. His lungs struggled to gain air like a normal human being, he had a hearing aid despite being only twenty-one years old, his eyesight was worse than most of the old people he interacted with on a daily basis. Not to mention his heart palpitations, pernicious anemia,  terrible immune system — especially to colds, which, he supposed, was probably more significant than he judged it, after multiple bouts with almost-deadly influenza in the twenty-first century.

    Essentially, Steve was no catch. He did his job as a part-time receptionist for the closest home for the elders to his shabby apartment in Brooklyn and took the subway as close to home as he could get it, running out of breath every day just walking the few blocks from the subway to his apartment. But he kept a smile on his face throughout, because he had the opportunity to interact with people from all sorts of different backgrounds, and he listened actively to any stories they had, sometimes war stories, sometimes just memories from their childhoods, growing up in a time so different to the present they experienced now.

    On Tuesdays and Thursdays he attended art classes, using money left to him by his parents when they died — his mother only recently — and as much as he could scrape together from his meager paycheck that didn’t go toward rent and bills.

    (Usually he looked for discount classes at the Rec Center.)

    That’s where he met Peggy, who quickly became one of his best (and, truthfully, only) friends. She had a quickness about her that he admired, and she looked at him like he was just another person. He wasn’t used to people seeing him like that with his size, his lack of weight.

    They’d been sketching a still life of a vase of flowers, and their teacher this time around was a little too overdramatic. He was droning on and on about capturing the _feeling_ of the flowers, the emotions captured within the vase, what was represented by the wilting rose petals.

    “I think it’s my investment in this class,” she’d muttered to him from the side, and he’d looked over at her and laughed. Her sketch didn’t have wilting flowers. There were no flowers at all, in fact. She was adding the finishing touches to an elaborate drawing of the teacher trying to get out of the vase.

    Steve liked her immediately.

    Her schedule had been more hectic lately, working more hours, but she tried to make time to go to classes with him every so often, or at the very least make time for dinner. She hated knowing he ate alone. (And was very good at forcing him to keep a fully-stocked refrigerator. Mostly with food she liked.)

✩ ✪ ✩

    It was a Monday when he came into work and learned he was the only one left in employment at this Home that didn’t have a TiMER embedded in his wrist. He approached his desk with trepidation. Nearly all the nurses were surrounding it, TiMERs noticeable even from a distance, glowing blue against the different shades of their skin. Steve blinked, because it was unusual to have even one of them initiating some kind of meaningful interaction with him — but _all_ of them? at once? Something was up. It felt like an intervention. The older women he worked with often tended to baby him, treating him more like a young son than a coworker, like he’d break if they so much as spoke in a normal voice to him. He may have been small, but he was a grown man, and didn’t really appreciate the near-condescending attitudes they tended to show him. There were probably good intentions in there somewhere, but he’d been working at this place for a few years now. They’d been exposed to him long enough to know he didn’t need to be coddled.

    Now, they stared at him with a sad, somewhat pitying look in their eyes, much like the look the rest of the nurses gave him. Even the men had shown up, which was strange enough in itself. Steve wanted little to do with them. They appeared to be good people on the outside, helping out the elderly, mostly nice to each other — but they all looked down upon him simply because his health and size were different than theirs, and that said a lot about their personalities.

    He knew they all saw him as inferior. He was an easy target; always had been. Most of them were taller than he was and he was sure they could all probably lift more than he could, had never been near-deathly ill with pneumonia or needed as many iron transplants in their childhoods. He brushed it off, most of the time, because his job didn’t require as much interaction with the other employees, and the people on the other ends of the phone calls he took couldn’t see him and thus didn’t judge his physicalities. But there were times when it stung, feeling the weight of their judgment, whether negative or just too much pity.

    There came a time when the elders within the home were more considerate than his coworkers, and he wasn’t sure that was a good sign.

    As he reached his desk, one of the older ladies — Suzanne, he remembered — lightly touched his wrist. “Steve, honey,” she began, and he swallowed, awaiting the blows that were likely to come and pasting a smile on his face in spite of it. “We’ve all noticed you’ve avoided getting a TiMER.” A few eyes pointedly glanced down to where Suzanne’s fingers rested gently on the wrist of his right arm. “You’re a sweet guy, Steve, and we all think you deserve a little love in your life.”

 _But no one wants to give me a chance_ , he thought but did not say.

    A younger nurse piped up. “We believe there’s someone out there for everyone, and why not get a TiMER that helps you to know exactly who that is?” She gave him a gentle smile, though it was reminiscent of the smile a kindergarten teacher gives an exasperating student. Mostly kind, but somewhat forced.

    One of the male nurses said, “My sister’s kid just got one, and he’s in high school. Perked him up ever since, knowing he’s just got a few years to go before he’ll meet his One.”

    Steve suppressed a sigh, because these people probably had good intentions, but he’s kind of sick of being the charity case. He could handle himself. He’d been doing so for his entire life, fighting off bullies in alleyways, not backing down until they did. He’d earned many a strong lecture for it. “Thank you,” he told his co-workers, smiling at all of them. “I’ll think about it.”

    What he didn’t tell them was that he couldn’t afford the procedure. What he didn’t tell them was that he didn’t think it’d be worth it, because even if he were to find a soulmate, what guarantee did he have that it would work out? What would the person think?

    People didn’t often pay any sort of romantic attention to Steve. He’d never been in a relationship in his life, and he didn’t think it was going to change at any point soon. He had faith for most people, it was true, but for himself? He was so full of issues, he wasn’t sure anyone would want to take them on — even in spite of whatever kind of obligation the device would bring.

✩ ✪ ✩

Which was exactly why, when he stood outside the TiMER shop a few weeks later, he wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten there.

    Steve had his hands in his pockets, trying not to shiver as the cool breeze caught him down to his bones. It may have been in the 50s, but he had so little skin on him, much less _extra_ , that anything under 65 degrees had him bundled up. He sighed, staring in the windows that showed pictures of forcibly happy people that were meant to prove that TiMERs really did work to help people find the person they’re destined to be with.

    He didn’t know what finally pushed him over the edge. It could have been the increasingly sad looks he’d been given by the ladies at the old folks’ home, or the men shaking their heads when they saw his still-empty wrists, or maybe the accusatory stares some of his coworkers directed at his arms. It was disconcerting, really, how quickly this trend had taken over and given him yet something else to be looked down upon for.

    It was that thought that finally gave him the motivation to go through the doors into the shop, earning a gust of warm air as he stumbled in.

    Immediately there was a smiling, perky associate at his side. “Hello, sir! Is this your first time here?”

    Steve blinked up at him and nodded jerkily, eyes drawn to the displays around and the dozens of people milling about. Excited chatter filled his ears, so loud that he winced, reaching up to turn down his hearing aid.

    The man grinned, eyes lighting up. “So you want to find your soulmate, huh? That’s what we’re here for! Come with me, and I’ll get you set up right away.” He led Steve to the desk in the middle of the shop, slipping in behind it and pulling out a tablet with the forms. “All we need is some simple information on you: name, birthdate, et cetera. There’s also some liability stuff we need you to sign off on, but,” he waved that statement away. “Come back up here when you’ve finished, and you’ll know exactly how long it will be until you meet the person you’re destined to be with! My name’s John, if you need anything.” He flashed a winning smile that Steve tentatively returned, though without as much flare.

   

It wasn’t long before he was laid back in a chair at the rear of the shop, half his jacket off, sleeve rolled up to expose his right wrist. The metal of the half-cylinder in which he had to lay his arm for the procedure was cold and drew goosebumps upon his skin.

    The man operating the TiMER implantation device had looked unimpressed with him as Steve had entered, but covered it quickly, giving him a too-big, toothy smile. Now he looked at Steve’s too-small wrist, then back at the TiMER gun, as though wondering if it was going to be more dangerous because of his frailty. Steve shifted uncomfortably, and that seemed to prod the guy back into motion. “Keep your arm still,” he warned, and counted to three — by three, there was a TiMER in Steve’s arm.

    It pinched and stung, but within seconds it was making a little start-up jingly noise and Steve stared in amazement as numbers appeared on the screen: _0157d 09h 43m 12s_.

    “That’s just about five months,” the guy told him, and Steve nodded absently, still staring down at his wrist.

    He had a calculated soulmate. There was someone out there whose TiMER had just started counting down, the same as his had, and he was going to meet them in less than half a year. It was overwhelming, really. In that moment he chose not to dwell on the possibility of his alleged soulmate being disappointed in him or disliking him or not wanting anything to do with him. Instead, he decided to focus on that fact that he had a _soulmate_ , and he knew the exact date of their meeting.

    The rest of the process went by in a blur. He paid for his procedure and was out the door and, soon enough, back in his run-down apartment, sitting on his bed and watching as the seconds ticked down on his wrist. Steve smiled to himself, allowing his thoughts to wander toward the fact that he could _have somebody_.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His routine never changed, really, aside from the fact that in the first weeks after getting his TiMER, he spent time at home staring at it and watching the seconds tick by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that, another update! Huzzah!
> 
> I'm revising what I already have, and will likely for chapter 3 as well, but I have a fun thumb injury that makes it a bit harder to type. Right when I want to Get To Work on my fic. smh @god why
> 
> Anyway though, chapter 2! as per the usual, thank you [Tori](http://archiveofourown.org/users/brraveheart/profile) for never flinching from working through this ish with me~ <3 (maybe some chapter I'll stop saying thanks, but this is not that one)
> 
> Updating with a chapter 2 means I have to keep going, right?
> 
> enjoy <3

After Steve’s mother died when he was 16, he was on his own. It’d been hard to make friends as a kid because he had never been able to keep up with anyone else, always the smallest kid in the class, and almost always sick. Because of it, not only did he miss a lot of school, but he missed a lot of normal kid stuff.

    Because of these problems, he’d grown up without many friends — none, really, if he were to be honest with himself. Anyone that may have spent time around him voluntarily either got annoyed when he couldn’t keep up and abandoned him, or moved schools or moved way or grew out of his company.  He eventually just sucked it up and walked around alone at school, ignoring half the pitying looks and coming home beat up more than once after standing up for bullied kids, even though many of them were bigger than he was — and sometimes the bullied kid was himself.

    Once Steve’s mother died, he learned how to be okay spending time entirely by himself and how to cope without anyone. He had never been one to back down, anyway, always standing up for himself and others, even when people laughed at him for it.

    Even when he came home beaten and bloody. Even when the people he helped never spoke to him or thanked him. He stood up because it was the right thing to do, and in spite of his size, he wasn’t going to allow  anyone to walk all over him. He hoped sometimes that it’d earned him some kind of respect, but the logical part of his brain told him that, in all likelihood, it didn’t. That didn’t matter to Steve, though. He was never doing it for any kind of reward. He was wired against knowing when he should probably back down. He got that from his mother, who told him time and time again, even as she patched him up — _always_ get back up again.

    Due to the nature of most of his interactions with others, Steve never took for granted the people he met that actually treated him like another human being.

    He never stopped being grateful, really. Mostly to Peggy. They met a few months before Steve’s mother passed away, and after Sarah was gone, Peggy was Steve’s rock. She kept him in shape, emotionally and physically, if ordering takeout for them every night she came over and not eating until he’d at least downed some of his counted.

    It didn’t hurt that he’s never once felt like she saw herself as above him in any way, except maybe in height. She joked sometimes that he should borrow a pair of her heels. He surprised her one Halloween by taking her up on the offer. (It didn’t last long before he was hobbling like a newborn foal, and the shoes came off before he could break his ankles, but the tear tracks down her cheeks and the ear-to-ear grin across her face gave him all the satisfaction he needed.)

✩ ✪ ✩

    After growing so used to being alone, it was overwhelming when he came into work the day after he’d gotten his TiMER.

    He slid in behind his desk like normal, but when he removed his cardigan and laid it over the back of his chair someone must have caught a glance of the newly embedded device on his wrist, because moments later he was being swarmed.

    “Steve got a TiMER!”

    “I know, I see it.”

    “What does it say? Is there a time on it?”

    “Of course there’s a time on it, you nitwit!”

    Steve shrank back in his seat and away from where many of his coworkers crowded around him, craning their necks to get a good look at the numbers on his wrist. _0156d 15h 57m 29s_.

    One of the older women (Joanne?) caught a grip of his arm and looked over the numbers, patting his TiMER a few times before releasing him. She smiled down at him. “Only five months until Steve meets his soulmate,” she told the rest of them, and there was somewhat of a collective gasp. Steve shied further away. He felt like a circus show. His cheeks heated up and he gave them the most polite smile he could manage.

    “Aren’t you glad you finally have a TiMER, hun?” someone asked.

    He directed his smile in the direction of the voice. “I won’t know until I meet the person, right?” Then, saving him from any more hassle, the phone rang, and it seemed to break his coworkers out of their gossip-drinking stupor. “Thanks for checking up, but I really should get to work.”

    They dispersed and he was left to his own devices, taking calls and directing elders and responding to emails, just like every other day.

    His routine never changed, really, aside from the fact that in the first weeks after getting his TiMER, he spent time at home staring at it and watching the seconds tick by. He drew without really thinking about what he was drawing, his mind on the person that was his alleged soulmate and how he was going to react when he met them. Steve’s TiMER served as a new kind of inspiration to cheer up about his life, because there was something concrete to look forward to. And, sure, there were nights he was filled with a niggling doubt and wondered if his soulmate would want any part of a life with him at all, but it didn’t change the fact that Steve was, simply, very excited at the prospect of _having_ a soulmate. This person was out there somewhere at _this very moment_ and was alive and living out their life and maybe watching the seconds ticking down sometimes the same way  Steve did before he fell asleep each night.

    The novelty faded around a month and a half in, though, after he realised that watching the time didn’t make it go by any faster, and he could be doing more with his time. For instance, he could be remembering to take his vitamin B-12 pills, and not getting overexcited, and calling Peggy at least once a week because c _ome on, Steve, I shouldn’t have to do all the work in this friendship, and you owe me for those Rainier cherries I woefully abandoned in your fridge last week_. He went back to spending concentrated periods of time sitting on his couch and drawing, perfecting ideas he’d had in the past and even trying his hand at new ones.

    Sometimes he’d glance up at the framed pictures of himself and his mother sitting atop the fireplace in front of him and smile. She’d always told him he had a talent, and now he was getting to work on it, reign it in, and make things he was proud of.

✩ ✪ ✩

During the months that came after, Steve went about his life just as he had before. His days were boring, as per usual, and involved just as many phone calls and art classes as before. There may have been a little pride involved when Steve found himself forgetting he had a TiMER altogether. Well — almost forgetting. He was just glad it hadn’t completely taken over his life.

    As his time dwindled, though, he found his thoughts drifting back toward his possible soulmate. Who would this person be? What would they look like? How would they act?

    Steve wondered all about this person. He’d been attracted to people throughout his life, that was a given, but he’d never really given a thought or a care to which gender the people were. He’d never gotten the opportunity to forge a relationship with anyone, either, so he had no idea who he preferred or didn’t prefer. He didn’t dwell on it much, though; only enough to wonder how it would factor into his soulmate’s personality.

    Then, finally, the day came where his day count reached zero: _0000d 16h 27m 54s_. He was glad it was a Friday; there was no way he was going to get any sleep that night.

    Steve tried not to allow his hands to shake as he went through his morning routine, barely able eat breakfast as his stomach flipped all over the place. He still had plenty of time before he met the person, for goodness’ sake, and yet here he was, already freaking out. He was nearly late to work — and Steve was _never_ late to work.

    One of the residents of the old folks’ home noticed his jitteriness as he made his daily lap past the reception desk and smiled, quirking a silvery eyebrow. Rick, Steve recalled. He was one of the veterans whose war stories Steve had avidly listened to many a time. The elderly man approached the desk and leaned against it, looking down at Steve and asking, “Now, what’s got you all hopped up, son?”

    Steve smiled sheepishly and tried to contain himself, knowing that if he got too excited now he could quite likely actually give himself a heart attack.  He gestured at his TiMER. “Tomorrow’s the day,” he told Rick, unable to help the slight widening of his smile.

    “Ah, that’s one of those newfangled devices that tell you when you see your soulmate or summat, yeah? Well, back in my day,” he winked at Steve, “we had to find our loves the old-fashioned way and see if it worked out.” Steve was sheepish again, ducking his head, but Rick just chuckled. “Best of luck to you, Steve. I hope your soulmate deserves you.”

    Steve felt his face grow hot as the man walked away, stammering a thank you and hoping he was heard.

    The rest of his day was pretty uneventful, aside from encountering two of the nurses in the break room and trying to avoid showing them his TiMER, much less engage them in conversation about it. He was worked up enough as it was.

    At home he could do little more than pace and turn on whatever calming music he could find, because really, he did not need to go spontaneously combusting the night before he was supposed to _meet his soulmate_. That wasn’t allowed to happen.

    He couldn’t even sit still enough to draw. He considered putting a movie on, but he knew his patience at this point was going to wear thin. Still, he knew better than to allow himself to focus far too much on his impending meetup, and so he eventually opened Netflix and played the first title he came across that looked interesting, settling down in his bed with his battered laptop resting on his thighs.

    He watched the TiMER count down to zero at 11:59, until finally —

    _0000d 00h 00m 00s_

    It gave its little jingle to let him know it’d zeroed out and Steve let out his breath, smiling a little to himself and flopping back onto his pillows. Knowing sleep would be hard to come by, he turned on another movie and settled in for what was bound to be a long night.

Steve awoke the next morning just before nine o’clock, somewhat surprised to notice he’d actually fallen asleep. It mustn’t have been too much longer after his TiMER hit zero, because when he woke his laptop up it was still paused in his second movie.

    He glanced down at his TiMER again and grinned, although with the look came a wash of doubt and anxiety and a near-crippling nervousness. He picked his glasses up from where they’d fallen on the mattress next to him and slid them on over his nose, stretching and trying to figure out what to do with his day.

    Whatever happened, he was going to meet someone that he could fall in love with — his One, as so many others called it — and it was going to happen before midnight that night. Steve tried to calm his nerves, taking his routine leisurely. He took his small mountain of medication, used his inhaler, showered, et cetera, and then was once again at a loss for how to spend his time.

    Steve let out all his breath in a huff, deciding to just go with his usual plan for Saturday mornings and head over to Brooklyn Bridge Park to work on his art. It’d been a while since he’d made an attempt at the perfect cityscape, and although it was later than he’d normally be heading over, he didn’t think there would be too much of a crowd. It was nice to draw in the peace of the morning, before the quiet was lost.

    He packed his bag full of the supplies he thought he’d need, threw on a jacket, and was out the door, hailing a taxi to take him there. He’d started a little fund just for these trips, and though it had dwindled so he could pay his bills, he never regretted it. Mornings like these were rejuvenating.

    Once in the park he headed straight for the Granite Prospect, a riser-like grouping of wide stairs that faced the city across the water. It was one of his absolute favorite places to go. The sounds of the water and the wind, the birds and the quiet chatter of people, always helped him to relax, and he never failed to leave in a better mood than when he’d arrived.

    There were, as he’d expected, more people than there normally would be, but Steve didn’t mind. He dusted the snow off and settled in his corner at the top of the first level, beginning to sketch the city laid out before him.

    The sun glinted off the buildings at an angle he ached to capture on paper, and before long, he was starting in on the details. The wind was cold, but not cold enough to completely slice through his jacket, for which he was thankful. It simply whipped against his cheeks and he had to hold the corners of his paper down to avoid it being wrenched to the side. His nose was maybe a little frozen, too, but it wasn’t too unpleasant.

    As he worked on more and more minute details, the clusters of people hanging out around the benches below him changed. At one point he caught sight of a man very clearly flirting with two girls, if his body language was anything to go by.

    Steve watched for a moment as he made a grand gesture across the water, said something, in response to which the girls laughed. The man leaned in close, grinning himself — and wasn’t that a grin that could light up the city in front of them — and said something that caused one of the girls to smile somewhat fondly and the other to giggle and blush.

    Steve smiled to himself and glanced above them at the buildings across the water, wanting to get the angles on one of them just right. As he brought his eyes back down, though, his gaze landed on the trio once more — only to find that the man he’d admired was looking right at him. Their eyes met, briefly, and Steve’s heart fluttered —

    — which was the exact moment his TiMER let out a bright little jingle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...so that gaze lock, huh?
> 
> talk to me on [tumblr](http://generalrogers.tumblr.com)!


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He could feel his heart beating, thumping wildly, as though trying to leap through his chest and into the other man’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 3, hurray! look at that I am Updating I am proud of me tbh
> 
> as always, thank you to [Tori](http://archiveofourown.org/users/brraveheart/profile) for being my bae-ta <3
> 
> thank you to those that are reading, I appreciate it! it's an exciting ride and i'm glad you're on it with me uvu
> 
> hope you enjoy!
> 
> I also realized that i'm posting this on the 4th of July, so I mean, Happy Birthday, Steve!

There’s a moment, every few billion years, wherein two galaxies crash into each other. The force of the gravitational pull of everything inside them — stars, planets, whatever else may have gotten sucked in — draws them together, merging the galaxies more than slamming them into each other. There are no explosions, just an inescapable _pull_ that drags the galaxies toward each other until they become one, still vast and beautiful but so incredibly full, far more than before.

    Steve’s heart came to a screeching halt, all the air rushing out of his lungs in one breath as he stared, wide-eyed, at the man who was watching him just as intently. Where there had been a flirtatious grin on his face there now was an awestruck wonder, and he and Steve held eye contact for a few more beats while Steve sat dumbfounded, unable to move. It didn’t take long before the other man was saying something to the girls at his side, never once taking his eyes off Steve before jogging toward him and vaulting up the steps until he stood directly in front of Steve.

    Steve, who still didn’t know what to do with himself. In close proximity, it felt like a light was connecting the two of them, a bright, incandescent string that drew them toward each other and made the cells in Steve’s body begin to sing. He could feel his heart beating, thumping wildly, as though trying to leap through his chest and into the other man’s. His blood rushed through his veins, igniting his nerve endings, setting everything on fire in the best possible way. It sent warmth throughout his body, from his head to his fingertips to his toes. Steve felt goosebumps raising in the way only the most chilling or most wondrous of experiences can prompt them to.

    The other man was far better looking close up, and that was saying something, since Steve had already been floored by his looks from a distance. His eyes were a brighter blue than Steve’s own, his face flushed from the cold, lips quirking with a thousand-watt smile that lit up his features. His hair was windswept, almost perfectly so, in such a way that seemed like he’d intended for the wind to blow it across his head the way it had.  

Steve had to force his mouth to close, because he may or may not have been gaping.

    “Hi,” the man said, sounding as breathless as Steve felt.

    “Hi,” Steve croaked, still frozen in place. He was amazed that someone like this could be his allotted One, the person he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with. He reminded himself that this was real life, and he should probably give some kind of sign that he’s alive inside — even if he did feel like the inside of his body had just been charred with a kind of golden fire that set him alight from within.

    His One didn’t seem to mind the awkwardness, though, removing the glove from his right hand and extending it. This brought Steve out of his awed stupor, and he dropped his pencil so that he could shake the other man’s hand. “James Buchanan Barnes,” his One introduced himself, grasping Steve’s hand in a grip that was steady and strong, but not in a way that suggested he was trying to exert power over Steve like many other men he’d met. “But the people I like call me Bucky.”

    Steve felt his mouth twitch at the corners. “So you like me, huh?”

Bucky winked. “I guess we’ll have to let time be the judge of that.”

Steve let his smile reveal itself in full. “Steve Rogers,” he told Bucky, still holding onto his hand without really noticing he was going so.

    “Good to know ya, Steve.”

    They finally let go and Bucky continued to stand in front of Steve, a little awkwardly, while Steve’s eyes drifted back down to his paper. It was maybe a little over halfway done, as of now appearing that the detailed product faded into the rough sketch.

    “Whoa, you drew that?” came Bucky’s voice, and Steve felt heat creeping up his neck at the awe in the man’s tone. He glanced up as Bucky took the seat next to him, but not before giving Steve a questioning look, like he was asking for permission. Steve scooted closer to the railing next to him in response and was rewarded with another blinding smile. Bucky kept their legs a few inches apart but leaned over to look at his sketchbook, admiration clear on his face. “That’s incredible,” he said, and Steve could feel the heat of his breath on the hand resting on his sketchbook, Bucky’s chest brushing against his shoulder.

Steve could tell he meant the compliment, too, which set his not-yet-settled stomach back into a flurry of butterflies. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Steve ducked his head. “Thanks,” he mumbled, rubbing an unsteady hand across the back of his neck.

    Bucky stared at the drawing for a short while longer and then shook his head before leaning back against the railing behind him, flashing a smirk that made Steve’s already pounding heart skip a beat. “So,” he drawled, “you come here often?”

    That startled a laugh out of Steve, in response to which Bucky’s smirk transformed into yet another grand smile. Steve found himself hoping he’d get the opportunity to see a lot of those. When Bucky smiled, his entire face lit up, and if Steve’d been standing it probably would’ve had him weak at the knees. It was no wonder he’d had two girls already giggling around him that morning.

    Steve couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he tried to form some kind of coherent response, turning himself so he could face the other man. This was overwhelming. _He_ was overwhelming, but in a good way — and there hadn’t been any signs of disappointment from him yet, so that was a plus. “Did you just pull a line on me?”

    Bucky looked mock affronted. “A line? What makes you say that?” He punctuated it with the quirk of one of his eyebrows, almost a challenge, and Steve couldn’t help himself — he leaned in further.

    _Honestly, anything out of your mouth would sound like a line_ , Steve thought, which surprised himself. He sat a little straighter, trying to shake off his nervousness and cover it with false confidence. He was used to looking more confident than he felt, anyway. He came up with nothing good to respond with, though, and just let out another laugh and shook his head, eyes still on Bucky. “Are you always like this?”

    The other man pushed off from the rails behind him so that he could lean closer to Steve, getting in his space, conspiratorial. He still held onto his flirty bravado, if his body language was anything to go by, but Steve could see an underlying fear in his gaze and caught him swallowing before he spoke. It was a comfort to know Bucky was just as nervous as he was, if better at hiding it.

    “Is it working?” Bucky murmured, and it came out probably more serious than he’d intended for it to be, and Steve couldn’t stop himself from laughing at the unintentional sincerity.

    Bucky laughed, too, and leaned back enough to give Steve some breathing room. The cold air that rushed in wrapped around Steve like a vice, and he shivered.

    A crease formed between Bucky’s eyebrows at the movement, and he frowned slightly before relaxing. “Hey, do you wanna go somewhere that — and this is just a thought — has heat?”

    Steve felt his lips quirk, holding back from rolling his eyes; while he was small, thin, and ridden with health problems, he could handle a little cold. But it warmed him a little, the thought of Bucky caring enough to get him out of the wintry air already, without knowing any of that. “Sure,” he responded. “You have somewhere in mind?”

    At that, Bucky grinned again, holding a hand out to help Steve up as he rose to his feet. Steve took it. It was warm and firm and felt nice within Steve’s grip.

✩ ✪ ✩

“Somewhere” turned out to be a hole-in-the-wall coffee place, where the barista greeted Bucky by name.

    “This the One, then?” she asked, already starting on a drink Steve assumed was probably Bucky’s regular order. A smile played at the edges of her lips.

    Bucky looked over at Steve, who noticed that — were his cheeks a little pink? He looked back over at the barista. “Sure is.”

    She grinned before topping off Bucky’s whipped cream, sliding it across the counter to him and then wiping her hands on her apron and extending one toward Steve. “Sorry about the coffee-hands situation. Darcy Lewis, resident coffee connoisseur. Lovely to meet you…?”

“Steve,” Steve finished for her, taking her hand and shaking it. There was still a little whipped cream on her fingers.

Her smile widened. “Steve,” she confirmed, glancing behind him at Bucky. “He’s cute. You got yourself a good one, Barnes.” Her eyes returned to Steve and her voice lowered as she leaned forward. In a mock whisper, she told him, “I’m not so sure about this one. Be careful with him when he hasn’t had his coffee. The man’s a monster.”

    “Hey now,” Bucky chided, brushing against Steve as he grabbed whatever crazy concoction of a drink Darcy’d made him. He turned toward Steve. “What’ll you have?”

    Steve glanced over the menu and settled on some kind of frothy vanilla thing, but when he got out his wallet to pay, Bucky stopped him.

    “Don’t be silly,” Bucky told him, withdrawing his own wallet. “I brought you here, I pay for the drinks. Besides — Darcy always gives me my drinks for free.”

    “Not a chance,” Darcy interjected, from at the other end of the counter, and both Steve and Bucky laughed.

✩ ✪ ✩

They sat in the coffee shop for hours, secluded in their table in the corner as the crowd of customers ebbed and flowed with the passage of time. Steve took off his jacket after a while, hanging it on the back of his chair, but he noticed Bucky kept his on — one glove, too, same as before. He wondered about it, briefly, but then was sucked back into the conversation again, trying to keep up.

    They talked about everything and nothing, getting a feel for one another without pushing too hard all at once.

    Steve learned that Bucky had an affinity for sweet coffee drinks and always indulged himself at this coffee place, as many mornings as he could get here. He wasn’t working at the present, seeking something he could do that he’d enjoy. He mentioned something about his previous job being intense and stressful, but left it there, so Steve didn’t press.

    Steve told him about the old folks’ home, and how many stories he heard every day, and Bucky seemed genuinely interested. He asked about the stories, and reacted as Steve spoke — in Steve’s time there, he’d encountered his fair share of interesting tales — nodding along, smiling, and laughing at a few. One story involved a husband and wife trying to Lindy Hop again in the middle of the lobby, which led Steve and Bucky into a discussion of their mutual appreciation of World War II-era jazz.

    It didn’t take long for the sun to shift overhead, though, shining in their eyes and then past them, and Steve realized he hadn’t been at home to take his B12 and hadn’t really planned well for a day out — which, in hindsight, was probably stupid, considering he was supposed to meet his soulmate, but still. Poor planning. And, if he was being honest, his energy was zapped.

    Bucky, though, Bucky was great. _Better_ than great, Bucky was fantastic — so it pained him to have to cut their day short.

    “Don’t even worry about it,” Bucky responded, standing up and stretching. “C’mon, I’ll call you a cab.”

    Steve followed Bucky outside, turning back to wave and smile as Darcy called out, “Bye, Steve!”

    He felt a little unsure all of sudden, though, leaving the warmth and smell of coffee behind as the New York winter air wrapped around him again. He didn’t know what was going to happen, outside the bubble they’d been in inside — they weren’t strangers anymore, exactly, but they certainly weren’t friends, were they? It seemed too fast, even though they were apparently soulmates.

    Steve stopped the other man before he could focus too much on flagging a cab.

    “It’s been really great meeting you, Bucky,” he said, earnest, and then he paused, wanting to do something more but at a total loss of what that should be. He knew he wanted to see Bucky again, and not just because they were soulmates.

    “You, too,” Bucky answered, giving another megawatt grin. Then he reached for his phone, fiddling with it for a moment before handing it to Steve. There was a blank _New Contact_ form on the screen. “Let’s stay in touch, huh?” Hope shone in his eyes as he looked down at Steve, and it was so clear that Steve was stunned for a moment before taking the phone.

    “Yeah, of course.” Steve tapped in his number and handed it back just as Bucky waved down a cab.

    His eyes returned to Steve, and he smiled again, gentler this time, though it transformed into a smirk as he opened the car door when it pulled up. “See you around, Stevie,” he said as Steve got in — and then darted in to press a light peck to Steve’s cheek just before Steve tugged the door shut.

    Bucky tossed him a wink and a wave as the cab pulled away, and Steve couldn’t keep the grin (or the flush) off his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on [tumblr](http://generalrogers.tumblr.com)!
> 
> by the way - I feel a thing important to mention before I move on!
> 
> when I first came up with the idea for this story and started brainstorming and writing it, it was 2014 and I had just seen and been enveloped by TWS; because of that, it's hard for me to find a place for the maximoff twins and t'challa in the story :x  
> I just. I did have a plan when this all started, bahaha, and I don't know that I could do them justice in this story. lots of love for those characters, though. <3
> 
> again, thank you for reading and being lovely!


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